Bookeen debuts Orizon touchscreen e-book reader
Bookeen may have a bit of a tough time getting its new Orizon e-book reader to stand out from the pack of other e-readers here at CES, but it does at least boast quite a few improvements over the company's previous Cybook Opus. That includes a 6-inch touchscreen display, built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, ePub support, and an accelerometer for portrait or landscape reading. No indication of a release date just yet, but this one should run about $250, and Bookeen still isn't quite done with the Opus -- it'll soon be available a whole range of colors.
Woo! Hoo!...another e reader that although has merit, probably won't be able to touch the kindle because of the format and distribution methods...all these companies have to take their nameless e readers, trash them and team up to release 2 or 3 readers with hassle free 3G distribution and a shareable format, that would stick it to em.
Here in my area they sell 2 kinds of e-readers in stores, the sony and the bookeen, I'm not in a kindle area, like most of the planet isn't, plus I'd not tie myself to amazon like that anyway.
So they have their niche, they are also very big in france I understand, few dozen million here, few there, and before you know it your market is bigger than all of the US, so no they aren't nameless.
Engadget should ban all coverage of run-of-the-mill e-readers. We have, what, four that are worthy of any attention(Kindle, Nook, Sony, Skiff)? That's plenty.
And cover every damn crappy phone released instead? Or yet another netbook that's exactly the same as any other? Or imaginary stories about imaginary apple products?
I wonder what the numbers are on how much a touchscreen hurts battery life while reading. I've never really looked into specs on how a touchscreen works, but I would think it's constantly drawing power (all-be-it minimal) to be able to register a touch. While your true e-ink display should be using no battery while reading except when you flip a page.
You know price is a big point, the kindle is cool and all but f paying all that money for say a kindle DX. Price this at less than $100.00 and I'd buy it.
I have a Bookeen Cybook Gen3 which never worked properly (they claimed a firmware release would fix the problems, but it was never forthcoming.) Once they released the Opus they stopped responding to support requests for the Gen3 altogether. Don't waste your money, stick with the Kindle, Nook, etc
@cherryboom
Actually I think some e-ink stuff is fabricated in europe, and it's not like notebooks I think, but it will no doubt end up that way eventually.
The opus (lower end version) by bookeen looks like a solid device - i'm seeing that everywhere in NY stores, so they have obviously become a player in the "options" to Sony, etc. Price is questionable, anxious to see what happens to their price point with all this competition. After reading this I asked my local NY store carrying opus what they knew about this new orizon, they knew nothing, and had no date about a release. I'm sure this review is another premature blog that doesnt have all the facts about this alleged product.